A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
by VioletLolitaPop
Summary: I suck at this. I suck at that. I hate it. I hate everything. I hate it all. And I love it. I love it and I love everything. I love it all. Such is my life. My sad pathetic life. .:AU Setting:.
1. Chapter 1

**xxx  
><strong>**I: **_"You should know by now that people don't give a damn."  
><em>**xxx**

What the hell do I do now?...

I don't know. I honestly don't fucking know. Before I thought the answer would be to keep writing. Write another novel. Write a better novel. Write a novel that will far surpass the first one. Write one that would make everyone see that you're not just a one-hit wonder.

'Cause that's who you are right? The incredibly talented, infamously powerful, persuasive, charismatic story teller adored by thousands right off the bat. The visionary who is only beginning to bloom into an extraordinary author. Whose future is paved clear ahead.

You can't hear the sarcasm in my voice, but it's there. Believe me, it's there...

I feel like my life at this point, doesn't really matter. And it probably doesn't, so I won't go into it. It's exceedingly boring and believe you me, you really don't want to hear it. Everything before the fame was peachy keen. Normal, boring, an every day family tale of ups and downs but nothing ever seriously dramamtic. You don't want to hear that.

No, nobody wants to hear the good in someone's life. It's always the bad that they thrive for. That they live for. It's like a sick attempt to make themselves reflect on their own life and thank whatever the hell it is they believe in that at least they're not as bad off as _that_ person. No, it's never something like:

**Person One:** So how's life been treating you?  
><strong>Person Two: <strong>Oh, it's been grand. Bob's just been promoted and Li'l Billy's reading two levels above grade.  
><strong>Person One: <strong>(_Genuinely happy_) Oh, wonderful, wonderful.  
><strong>Person Two: <strong>Isn't it just? I couldn't be happier.  
><strong>Person One: <strong>(_Brutally honest)_ I couldn't be happier for you.

It's always and _always_:

**Person One:** So how's life been treating you?  
><strong>Person Two: <strong>Oh, it's been grand. Bob's just been promoted and Li'l Billy's reading two levels above grade.  
><strong>Person One: <strong>(_Hatred and Envy beginning to bubble inside whilst thinking along the lines of "Miserable cow, that should be my family!"_) Oh, wonderful, wonderful.  
><strong>Person Two: <strong>Isn't it just? I couldn't be happier.  
><strong>Person One: <strong>_(Wishing misery and doom on the other person)_ I couldn't be happier for you.

You sick bastards.

That's what all of you want isn't it? All you want is some kind of tragic drama for your own sick entertainment, isn't it? And not just any drama, you want the real hardcore non fiction stuff, no, you _need_ that kind of real hardcore non fiction stuff to temper down you insatiable hunger for it. You don't care about the the family vacations or the pleasant well prepared meals we've shared together or even how I taught my brother how to ride a bike. No, what you want is what happened after all that. After the book was published, after all of the failing attempts at creating a new masterpiece and during that every misfortune that has fell upon my family. Well, you know what, fuck you. I don't have to share a damn thing with you people, and I sure as hell wouldn't do it for no damn good reason either. So to hell with you, all that, is my business. I don't need to share shit.

So that's it, from this point on, everything that's happened in my life, I'm just gonna pretend that none of it ever happened at all. Which might be a little more difficult than I think now, but I'll deal with that if it ever comes up.

...

I know I'm saying all this bullshit now, but I know by tomorrow, I'm not going to go through with any word I just said. I'm not gonna forget shit, I'm still gonna acknowledge everything. Everything from the book publishing to my father's cancer to my brother's expulsion to my failed attempts at doing anything to my mothers now failing heart, it's still all gonna be there, it's still all gonna matter.

And there's not a damn thing I can do about that. I know that every now and then I'm gonna slip up and say something that had to do with all of that drama and that's gonna lead to people asking what the hell and I'll answer them. I might lie, but I'll answer them.

So fuck it, whatever, I don't care. I shouldn't even have to deal with this kind of bullshit. I really shouldn't. This was not how I wanted things to come out. This was not how I wanted to come out. This was not how things were supposed to turn.

Thinking about this right now, with my eyes starting to close and knowing that in about three hours that damn alarm is going to go off and wake me up in a bad mood, this has got to be the lamest crap I have ever thought.

**xxx**

Disclaimer: Silver rabbits lead the dance...

-So this is... a repost of a fic that I had started a while ago, and even though I don't read or watch Naruto anymore, I still really like this story, and I still really love Itachi, so I want to finish it.

-I already have seven chapters done, but I'm only going to post weekly because I have this habit of not keeping to a schedule even though I want to, so to ensure that I'll be updating regularly, there's gonna be seven weeks of slow posting catch up.

-I was hesitant to delete this because of the reviews that I had received for it and truly doubt I will ever get again, but I really wanted to keep going and there are some things that keep me from updating on the old profile. So I took it from there and put it here, so I could have it again. That's actually made me a lot happier for some reason. ^-^

-Anyway, to the one person who did put me on author alert most likely to keep reading, you can go ahead and take me off that and just subscribe to the fic.


	2. Chapter 2

**xxx  
><strong>**II: **_"Cynism is just another form of defense."  
><em>**xxx**

The alarm's going off, and I don't care. I can't bring myself to care. What's going to happen today, that hasn't already happened any other day?

I'll get up, sniff at the clothes around, end up wearing something I wore only a day ago, leave my room, bump into my brother, a cryptic conversation will strike up between us, I'll pass by the family portrait and say a few words for my father, meet up with my mother in the living room, listen to her uneven breaths until she falls into another nap, and once she's done that, I'll watch infomercials until the music videos start.

But not before this happens...

My head peeks out from under the blanket at the sound of a fist pounding against the wood of my door in even and consistant thumps. One, two, one, two, one,two. I wonder if he knows that it's the same pattern everday.

"Turn it off!"

One, two, one, two, one, two, it keeps going until I finally give in and turn the damn thing off. To tell you the truth, the only reason why I bought this alarm was to piss him off every morning. I knew that old time ring so early in the morning would just set him off.

Ah, Sasuke, you're too easy to rile up...

So the alarm's off, now what? Oh, right, search for clothes. May as well cut this part short, there's that shirt I wore like, three days ago, that's a long enough gap right? Quick sniff, passes the funk test.

You ever wonder why it's only shirts that people sniff when they rewear them? Because I've honestly thought this before, I go through the trouble to sniff out my tops but when it comes to the bottoms, I just pull them on like nothing. Shouldn't we be more concious of the stank of ball sweat then pit stink? Then again, who would readily sniff out ball stank?

Guess I just answered my own question...

Okay, so dressed and ready to go, what's next? Right, cryptic bump. Heh, sounds like a dance move. The new dance sensation for the next generation! Okay, I'm having way too much fun with myself this morning, and not in the normal way for a guy my age...

It's always the usual way too. I leave my room, pad down the hallway, and coming out of the bathroom near the stairwell, Sasuke'll walk by on the way back to his room to grab his bag before heading off to school. Last minute things before vacating the house all day if it's a weekend. It's Thursday though, and as far as I know there's no impending vacation that calls for a four-day weekend, so it must be the bag he's after when he passes me by this time.

"You should think about mom when you let that thing go off," he says.

Really, whatever happend to "Good Morning"?

"She can't hear it," I tell him. "Not all the way up here."

Sasuke huffs slightly. "Just because she can't make it up here anymore, doesn't mean you can make any kind of noise you want."

"I think that's exactly what it means."

I'm pretty sure that an implication like that is more morbid than cryptic, but what the hell, I'm feelin extra cynical all of a sudden.

"Whether or not is it," he goes on, "anyone should be grateful for the extra time and make the most of it."

"True, but really, what good is advice like that if it isn't followed by the one giving it?"

"Maybe the one who's giving it isn't the one that needs it as much."

I want to hit him all of a sudden.

"Whatever."

Not the best rebuttal of my life, shut up, I'm well aware.

"I'll look in on mom," I tell him, pushing past him and towards the stairwell landing.

Another part of the routine. I don't need to tell him I'll look in on her, it's just something that I do first thing when I get up, we're both well aware of that, still, it just feels like it's something that needs to be said. Maybe.

"Itachi."

That's new. I look back at Sasuke, still standing like I had left him. His head didn't even turn when he called back to me.

"What?"

He still doesn't move. It's kinda freaking me out...

Finally, his head shakes a little, like in the "no" motion kind of way.

"Nevermind," he says. "Just- nevermind."

I stay where I am, can't help it. I just watch him walk towards the door at the end of the hall and shut it behind him. He'll come out a few minutes later, bag in hand, but even though I stayed a few minutes upstairs extra just to watch him walk back into his room, I defintely don't want to be here still when he comes back out. There was something odd about the way he called out to me. I'm not really sure if I want to know what he was going to say.

So what better way to deny what could be a harsh reality reminder then sticking to your hum drum routine?

Going down the stairs, I come into contact with that photo right at the bottom, the one positioned smack dab in the middle of the wall right in front of the main entance to our beloved home. The family portrait. It's also the same place where we had set up a nifty little candle in memory of our father. Not sure what that's supposed to do, but whatever pleases the maternal figure, guess it's fine by us offspring...

So, what to say today to our late paternal figure. For some reason, this just feels like something I need to do. Like, I need to say something to him in order to continue on with the day. I mean, this is pretty much all we have left of the man, I can't just ignore him. God knows, couldn't do that while he was alive, can't very well do it while he's dead.

That's just rude.

So what's it gonna be today? Will I play the part of the eldest son holding a high regard for the once head of the household? The emo-martyr? Distressed youth?

"You son of a bitch."

Guess it's going to be angsty angry pants today...

"What gives you the right to fucking just up and fucking die on us, you fucking asshole."

Granted, I know it's not his fault. It's not like he _chose_ to die. That's not gonna stop me from cussing out his image in the portrait though. Oh no, I'm on a roll.

"You know the fuck happened when you died? This whole shit with Sasuke happened. This emo distance shit happened and it's not fair 'cause that should be my role. It probably would've been too if mom hadn't gotten sick. Which you probably caused, you fucker, it's her heart that's giving out. Ever hear of broken heart syndrome? Of course not, you had no fucking heart. You couldn't have had one. If you did you would've-"

"Itachi?"

Shit, she heard me. Must've been louder than I though...

"Yeah?"

My mother's voice travles through the archways faintly. A painful reminder of her health status. There was a time when we could hear her shout for one of us kids throughout the entire house. Now we have to be within a two yard radius of her to be able to even acknowledge that she is speaking.

"Was that you speaking just now?" she asks.

I wasn't exactly sure if that's what she was asking me or not, so I had to walk into the living room. After awhile, my mother's condition had gotten so bad that she wasn't able to really eat anymore. By some kind of default it made her heart palpatations increase and create an inconsitant heartbeat. The quacks figured it would be best to hook her up to an IV and a heart monitor 24/7. That way we'd be able to keep her condition in check and she'd be able to be home.

Honestly, I don't see the fucking difference. Sasuke's never home and I know jack shit about medicine so either way, a call to 911 is going to have to be made even if she wasn't hooked up to anything. I mean, I udnerstand the IV, but the heart monitor?...

In any case, we had to set her up in the living room. It was just.. easier. Main room of the entire house, it still gave her that sense that she was still able to run the place like she had back in her hayday. And Sasuke and I.. we just let her pretend...

"W'a's'at, mum?" I slur out once I get into the room.

She's sitting up slightly in the bed we had put up next to the sofa, the IV dripping in sync with the off beats of the heart monitor. Wonder if we're eventually going to need an oxygen machine. Should I get a pair of scrubs?

"I asked if that was you I heard talking," she repeats, languidly rubbing at her eyes. She must have just woken up, this I could work with.

"Yeah," I answer and move to her bedside. "I was, saying some stuff to dad."

She smiles at me, which means that she didn't hear what it was I was saying, which means I'm in the clear. Good day so far.

"What did you say?" she continues to ask.

"Just the usual," I say, sitting down next to her. "Things like how we've been since then. How everyone's doing."

"That's my boy." She reaches out to pet my head, ends up playing with the ends of my hair. Probably should have pulled it back before coming down...

"Or should I say girl?" she teases, a small smile still playing on her lips. My God, it's heartwrenching being in the same room with this woman.

"Quit it," I scold somewhat, not seriously or anything. I still lean back out of her touch though, smiling back at her. She seems to take it to heart, reminicing in the days when we would play like that back in the day. The way her eyes light up whenever I let this happen between us...

Did I mention how heartwrenching it is being in the same room as her?

The sound of the front door slamming breaks us out of whatever the hell it was we were caught up in. A tell tale sign that Sasuke had left for school already. Without a goodbye. Again. I look over at mom again, and sure enough, her face fallen, the unhappiness of the situation making it's statement loud and clear.

"He didn't say goodbye," she mutters.

I slump slightly in my seat, looking for the remote, looking for a distraction.

"He'll come back," I murmur back.

From the corner of my eyes I can see her nodding slowly.

"I hope he does," she whispers and I have to stop my search. I have too look back at her.

"What?"

She raises her head towards me, looking me straight in the eyes.

"Itachi," she says slowly, carefully. "My birthday's coming up."

I knew that, so I nodded.

"Is there something you wanted?" I ask.

She nods this time.

"What is it?"

"I want," she begins and pauses, like as if she doesn't know how to word it. "I want you to take care of Sasuke."

I repress a sigh. Why is that I all of a sudden I want to drag him back in here by the back of that duck ass of a head of his?

But I can't do that, for some reason I feel like I shouldn't do that in front of her. So instead, I nod like an idiot again.

"Fine," I say. "But you gotta do something for my birthday."

Her smile is back. "What's that?"

"You have to get better," I hear myself say.

I swear to God, I did not plan to say that.

Her expession is unreadable for a moment. Suddenly though, there seems to be some kind of new life brought into her facial features and she smiles again.

"Deal."

This agreement is unsettling for some reason. Ignoring it though.. for now at least. Instead of continuing the conversation on, I go back in search of the remote. It takes me a full five minutes before I find it lodged between the cushions.

"Is there anything you want to watch?" I ask her.

She shakes her head no. "I'm going to take a nap."

You just woke up, but whatever...

"I'll keep it down," I assure her, heeding the small nod she gives and settles back into her pillows.

Once her eyes are closed and her breathing is as even as it's ever going to be, I know she's out again. I sigh for real this time, knowing that there's no conscious way for her to acknowledge it and turn the TV on. It's at least another hour before music videos start, but it doesn't matter.

I love this magic bullet thing.

**xxx**

-FYI, I really do like that Magic Bullet infomercial. :3


	3. Chapter 3

**xxx  
><strong>**III: **_"Just because it starts with 'once upon time', doesn't mean it'll end 'happily ever after'."  
><em>**xxx**

Once upon a time... there was a boy. Suppose one could call him special. Or at least gifted, in some way or another.

For some, inexplicable reason, this boy was gifted with words. He was able to use them to weave them with one another and create what many called "verbal magic". His story telling was so incredible and gave such a huge impact at such a young age, that everyone automatically assumed that he would amount to great heights before he would even become an adult.

For awhile, they were right.

When he had turned ten, he had won a contest that was offered nation wide to all of the elementary schools. The prize was having a piece of written work become published as part of a then popular children's book series.

Thinking of it now, that contest was kind of a cop out for the author. Who in their right mind allows public school elementary kids to write out part of their new book for them? What a lazy ass man...

Anyway, during his middle school years, he was sought out to write speeches for not only the school administration, but also for city officals. He was presented with prizes and awards and several other tokens of acknoweldgement.

His parents were proud. His teachers were proud. His peers were.. well, they didn't really care. But that was only because to the majority of them didn't understand why someone would write something if it wasn't for a class or being paid for it.

Why wasn't he being paid for it? Oh that's right, it was his pride. Dammit...

In any case, during his last years of high school, the boy went about writing a book. No, not a book, a novel. And yes, they are two very separate things.

Lord of the Rings is a novel while Harry Potter is just a book. Interview with the Vampire is a novel while Twilight is.. well, Twilight is just shit. Wonder where the author gets the plots for the series from? Yes? Well, think about it. Is it any wonder why she encourages fanfiction?

Oh, what a terrible implication.

Back to the boy though. He started his work of art. It took him two consecutive years to create and by graduation time, he had completed it.

Within a week it had been published and within a month it had become a best seller. And not just any kind of best seller. It was one of those Oprah-demands-you-to-read best sellers. And the money, oh! How there was money pouring in from every direction. And there would have been a lot more, had the boy sold out his creation and signed it off to a producer to turn it into a film.

But no, he had spent so long on it, nurturing the embodiment of his life's ambition into a work of art that he could be more than proud of. It was something dear to him, something precious, something that he wouldn't sell off to anyone for anything. This was what was going to send him off on his destined path.

And it would have, if Life had decided not to interfere.

The path to his early downfall, was not soaked in greed or overindulgence in his wealth. No, things like that, so superficial and petty, those were situations in which he was too strong to ever become involved in. No, what caused his descent back into the small bit position he had built himself up from was the one thing that could only effect him to such an extent.

His family.

He hadn't noticed it at first, probably the only one out of the entire family not to have. After gaining a publisher and trying in vain to begin another work of literary genius, his entire outlook on everything was through rose tinted glasses. It wasn't until he failed countless of times to create something new that the glasses fell from the bridge of his nose and harsh colors of reality were forced onto him.

During the frustrating hours he spent locked away by himself, his father was slowly dying. And from the moment that he finally realized what was going on within his own home, it was too late to stop everything that would happen from happening...

"Itachi."

That same boy (though suppose by now he's considered a man) opens his eyes and is met with the dull stare of his younger brother. The same one who most likely resents him and blames him for most of what's happened to this once normal family.

"What is it?" he asks.

"They say we can go in with her now," his brother informs him, turning away and walking down the linoleum hallway, his shoes making that slight squeak noise when rubbing against the surface.

With a resigned look on his face, he raises himself up from the chair and starts after his sibling. His own shoes make the same squeak against the tiled surface, each sound edging just how depressing this situation really was, stabbing the feeling into his being with everything they had.

Going passed the emergency room patients and into the ICU, it hits him even more.

Was it really only twelve hours ago, that they had been at home. All of them for once, in the living room, in front of the television, actually sitting in each other's company. It had been so relaxing, so calm, and everything felt right in the world for just one shining moment and he had allowed himself to slip into that delirium, becoming too comfortable in it and falling into oblivion for just a few moments on the sofa next to his brother.

How had the situation gone from something as miraculous as that to suddenly rushing to the hospital with his mother in his arms, having her taken from his possession and being forced to wait in the emergency room hallway where they had set out a set of very uncomfortable metal chairs with barely any cushion on the seats?

Going into that room that's half made up of windows, he begins to realize that all of this happened because Life decided to play fair.

When he goes into that room and sees the many tubes and needles sticking into his mother's skin, the monitors continue on in their inconsitant rhythm while the oxygen tanks pump air into her resisting lungs, that's when he realizes that Life is now fair.

He had a happy childood, a happy adolescence, and now for the sake of compensation, he was being put through hell to pay for all of the good memories now that he was an adult.

But when he sees his brother from the corner of this eye and realizes that it's not only himself being put through hell, and when he realizes how much pain the woman who gave birth to him must be going through, he has to ask, even if it's to compensate, how is hurting those around him as well compensating for things that he expeirienced in his lifetime?

Why was his brother being forced through the motions of losing his parents? What could his mother possibly have had that she needed to suffer for?

So maybe, Life isn't fair. No, it can't be fair. If Life wanted to be fair, then it shouldn't have to subjecate other's to one person's compensation. It's their life, only they should have to pay for what's happened during said lifetime.

So no, Life isn't fair. It's more than unfair. It's a complete shit load of hyprocrisy and injustice being forced down everyone's throat. And the only way to have a happy ending is to die right before everything goes spiraling downwards.

Only if you cut the story short, will it end in 'happily ever after'.

That's Life.

**xxx**

-Don't you love narrating your own life story in third person POV? XD

-I forgot to update last week. I know, fail author is fail but it's most likely not going to happen again... Did I miss one week or two? -scratches head-


	4. Chapter 4

**xxx  
>IV:<strong>_ "Promises are all on how you look at it, were you clear on what you asked for?"_**  
>xxx<strong>

Inside my mother's room, against the solid wood paneled wall next to the window, there's a dark beige sofa. The usual kind that seats three people. That's where me and Sasuke have been sleeping for the past four days.

It's not technically allowed, but seeing as how I'm paying for her own private room in the ICU to begin with (and because the two of us have already put up one helluva fight with the doctors, security, police, attack dogs, etc..) the staff's let us stay in the room with her. It also helped that I let it slip that if she went, we'd be orphans.

Which seems odd to me. Referring to myself as an orphan, I mean. Almost twenty, am I still allowed to be an orphan? When you hear the term, doesn't everyone usually come up with some Oliver Twist looking kid? Or at least a ten year-old Harry Potter?

My eyes flicker over to Sasuke. Right now, he's on the opposite side of the couch, still sleeping. The practically threadbare moss colored blanket is barely covering the lower half of his body. My fault really, I most likely brought the damn thing closer to me during my sleep.

I get up from my spot on the sofa and drench the fabric over him properly. This boy though, this boy could still be an orphan.

I sigh and start to make out for the exit. He wouldn't like me thinking that. Nope, not at all.

So for the past couple days that we've been staying here, it's been pretty much like this:

**Me**: (sleeping on one side of the couch)**  
>Sasuke<strong>: (sleeping on the other side)**  
>Mom<strong>: (sleeping in her bed)**  
>Me<strong>: (starts to wake up)**  
>Sasuke<strong>: (starts to wake up because I'm waking up)**  
>Me<strong>: Are you going to school today?**  
>Sasuke<strong>: Is there school today?**  
>Me<strong>: I think it's a weekday.**  
>Sasuke<strong>: Yeah, I'm going to school. (gets up)**  
>Me<strong>: Bring me some clothes, yeah?**  
>Sasuke<strong>: Go to the house yourself.**  
>Me<strong>: You're going there anyway.**  
>Sasuke<strong>: And?**  
>Me<strong>: So bring me back some clothes.**  
>Sasuke<strong>: Go to the house yourself.**  
>Mom<strong>: (waking up) Boys?**  
>Sasuke<strong>: (glares at me)**  
>Me<strong>: (sighs) Morning, mom.**  
>Mom<strong>: What's going on?**  
>Me<strong>: Sasuke's going to school.**  
>Mom<strong>: Sasuke?**  
>Sasuke<strong>: I'm going to school soon. I'll be back after.**  
>Mom<strong>: M'kay. Sasuke, come here, please.**  
>Sasuke<strong>: (walks over and leans down to her)**  
>Mom<strong>: (kisses him) Love you.**  
>Sasuke<strong>: Love you too.**  
>Mom<strong>: Have a good day.**  
>Sasuke<strong>: I will.**  
>Mom<strong>: Have Itachi drop you off at the house.**  
>Me<strong>: Why?**  
>Mom<strong>: So you can get some clothes.**  
>Sasuke<strong>: (smirks)**  
>Me<strong>: (sighs) Fine.**  
>Mom<strong>: Make sure to eat something too.

Because of this situation, we've been surviving off either the cafeteria food or what we can get from the vending machines. Which is what I'm doing right now. Because even though she tells us to eat something at the house, we never do. Nothing makes a better breakfast than a Snickers bar that's over priced at two dollars and fifty cents. Frickin' hospitals... I'll get something better later on in the day, for now though, I guess this is enough.

I should get something for Sasuke too while I'm here. He's picky though. I admit that I'm not one to talk but I at least deal with what's given to me. This boy however, would rather go hungry than shove a handful of Skittles in his mouth. If only the one next to it had V8, all this would be a lot easier. Healthier too. Whatever, he's going to have to deal with Starbursts because I am not dragging my ass to the cafeteria this early on in the day.

Going back to the room is kind of something I don't want to do either. I never really seem to notice when I leave, but when I eventually go back to my mother's side, I notice it. I notice just how much this place reeks of illness, disease, death. Especially in the ICU. It sucks, but I've already seen it happen, late at night, some orderlies walking by with a gurney loaded with someone that's had their sheets pulled over their head. And it's like it's unavoidable, the entire wall that holds the door to the hallway is made of glass with no kind of curtain, we were bound to see it. I'm just glad that while I've been here, she hasn't seen it.

I would have preferred for Sasuke to not have seen it either, because when he did, he looked at her. He looked at her, like if he was trying to figure out when it would be her that they would parade around in the hallways at night. I want to tell him that it's not gonna happen. That this is just a minor set back in her recovery. That she promised me that she would get better by my birthday...

Shit! Birthday! Today's her fucking birthday!

I sprint the rest of the way back to the room, slamming the door open as quietly as I possibly can. (Yes, I am well aware of how much of a contradictory that is, leave it.) It's still really early. It's actually a lot earlier than when I usually get up, meaning neither my mother or brother are ready to awaken. Unfortunately for one of them, they're going to be.

"Wake up."

Sasuke's grumbles almost inaudibly before shooting a glare at me from narrowed eyes.

"What?"

"It's her birthday."

This wakes him up immensely. I end up taking a seat next to him, the sun's barely coming up and soon enough, the rays'll hit the window and she'll start to wake up. Right now though, we're just talking about our options.

"We can hit up the gift shop."

He snorts.

"And give her the same fucking flowers we've been putting in here every day. Yeah, that'll be good."

"They have other stuff too, I think... And watch your language."

"You're not my father."

"No, I'm alive."

Even I admit, that was fucking low... I mean, that shit even hurt me...

"...Asshole..."

And I agree.

"They have balloons." I try to start up the gift shop idea again. "I'm pretty sure not all of them have 'get well' soon on them. Besides, what the hell else are we supposed to do?"

He doesn't say anything, and I'm not sure whether it's because he has no clue on what to do or actually thinking of a way to solve this micro-dilemma. And no, I don't mean that lightly.

I sigh and run a hand through my hair. Not greasy, can go a little longer without needing a wash. Gross, right? Yeah, well deal. I get up from the seat and take a look out the window. How fast could I get to the nearest 99 cent store and back? Who was the fucking genius that decided to place a hospital so damn far away from the rest of civilization?

Okay, so it's not that far, but still...

"I'd be great if we could decorate the room," I say absently. "Maybe make everything.. happier?"

"Happier?" Sasuke questions, and dammit all I can hear that fucking snide remark hidden in that one word. "Is that really possible at this point?"

I round on him, genuinely angry at him for once because he's being such a little emo bitch right now.

"She's here, isn't she? It's her birthday, isn't it? Why is that not a reason to be thankful? God, someone listening in would think that you meant it otherwise."

He looks down into his lap and I honestly believe that I made him feel guilty.

Itachi: 1  
>Sasuke: 0<p>

Bwahaha.

Anyway, he doesn't stay that way very long. He gets up suddenly from the sofa/bed, letting the blanket that was still partially covering him fall to the ground. Better not have to wash that too now. Laundry's just piling up at the house.

"Go to the gift shop, I'll take care of decorations," he says while moving towards the door. "And make sure that the balloons really don't say anything on them."

And then he leaves. And then I feel incompetent. Because it's pretty apparent that he just took hold of the reins. That's a blow to my ego. But I won't say anything about that, so the score's the same.

So I follow out after him. Though whereas he made a left, I made a right, going to the lobby of the hospital rather than... well, wherever the hell he's going. It's not that far of a walk, and I make it in a faster time than I had the vending machine... How that's possible, I don't know...

The gift shop is filled with, guess, flowers. Flowers, cards, balloons (knew it), toys, and candies. Those are most likely for the little kids that come in... Damn, that's depressing... Well, I know I can rule out the toys, and I'm not one hundred percent on the candy. I'm not getting her anymore flowers, though I guess I should since the ones in the room are already dying.

Goddammit, flowers are depressing too...

"Do you have any balloons that don't say anything on them?"

The girl behind the counter places her finger on her chin and rolls her eyes up in thought. Because y'know, it just needs that much thought to figure out what I asked.

"We've got red ones, blue ones, and white ones," she finally answers.

"How patriotic."

"I know, right? Totally cool, huh?"

Suppressing the urge to smack this child across the head. Suppressing the urge to smack this child across the head. Suppressing the urge...

"Get me ten of the white ones, I suppose," I tell her. "Wait, they're not those crappy metallic looking ones, are they?"

"We've got both. Non-metallic then?"

"Very perspective of you."

Her expression goes dark all of a sudden.

"Listen, Mr. Man, idk just wtf you want with so many balloons, but asking for that many, just pisses me off a little bit since I'm obviously the only one workin' right now. Now, the only reason why I'm not giving you a huge helluva hard time right now, is 'cause someone you know is obviously in the hospital, and to buy these crap balloons at a huge rip off price, they must mean a lot. But throw another smart ass remark at me, and I'll fuck you up, y'hear me?"

Okay, so this girl's not so bad after all...

I raise my hands up to her in defeat. "Okay."

She turns around and starts the beginning process of filling up ten non-metallic balloons, muttering under her breath in Spanish. Most likely cussing me out. While she does that, I go around the small store, trying to see if there's anything else that I can get.

Cards, cards. Toys, toys. Candy... Seriously, I'm a fucking author, I can't think of something to do with this shi-...

On one of the bottom racks with all the cards, there are a bunch of blanks. On the front of one in particular, there's a huge frontal picture of a Forget-Me-Not. I think I just got an idea. I'll have to run out to the car, but it's a damn good one. I practically grab all of them, and look around for something to hold it all together. Glue, tape, anything.

"Hey," the girl calls out to me. "D'you want these things on sticks or strings?"

I look back at her.

"Strings are fine."

She shrugs and goes back to work while I continue my search. By the cash register, there's a small desk set for kids. Safety scissors, glue stick, notepad, pencil, small roll of tape. Perfect. That's when I notice something else. Could be thrown into the "toy" section, it's a small customizable doll set, paints included. I pick it up. Why the hell not?

By the time I finish with my browsing the balloons are done and ready to be bought. I lay out everything on the counter and wait patiently while being rung up.

I ask her one more thing before leaving.

"Hey, could I buy some of those balloon sticks off of you?"

She raises an eybrow and lifts one of the sticks she could have tied the balloons to. "These?"

"Yes, those."

She shrugs. "How many d'you need?"

"About.. seven should be okay."

She counts them out and hands them over. I open my wallet again and she stops me.

"No charge."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I mean, you spent like, over sixty dollars already. Whoever all of this is for, has got to be hella important."

I put the wallet away. "Thanks."

When I walk out, I see that the sun's starting to come up already. We've got about two or three hours if that to finish everything. I get back to the room as fast as I can, Sasuke's not there yet and I don't question it. He said he was going to take care of decorations, let him. I drop the stuff off I had just bought and race out the door again, this time for the parking lot.

Awhile ago, when I first visited the house to get some stuff, I had brought her photo album. Something familiar, and something I thought she might like to have near her. I changed my mind at the last minute though, it could have done more harm then good. For Sasuke that is. Still, I never did put it back, just kind of left it in the trunk.

Once I had that, I ran back inside, ignoring those scolding me for running in a hospital. This time when I get back into the room, Sasuke's there. Tearing up paper gowns into strips with... a scalpel?

"Where'd you get that?

He doesn't look up from his work.

"Somewhere."

I leave it at that.

While he goes about making streamers (because apparently that's what he was making), I go about with my project. I throw out the dying flowers and keep the vase nearby. I rip open the stationary set and make a make-shift card tree. Once I get that down, I flip through the album and chose some pictures, taking them out and taping them to the inside of the cards. Once that's done, I glue the back of the cards to the card tree. It's.. decent looking. At least you can't see any bare spots.

After I stick that in the empty vase, I start on the next gift.

"What's that now?"

I look up from opening the small plastic bag. Sasuke's looking over at what I'm doing now, halfway with hanging another "streamer" across the wall. He got them to twirl around pretty good...

"Just a little doll set."

"What're you gonna do with that?"

"Gonna paint them like us."

"Like us?"

"Yes, like us. Me, you, mom, dad."

By the time she starts to wake up, it's already past day break. The paint on the dolls are barely beginning to dry, and Sasuke and I had just finish plastering tin foil stars on the window wall. Okay, seriously, this room looks like the prom of some home school kids.

The first that catches her attention are the balloons, which Sasuke tied to the bottom corners of her bed.

"What's this?"

We throw some random small pieces of paper like confetti around her.

"Happy birthday!"

She laughs quietly and starts to get up, slowly. She's been moving so slow these days. Both of us help her up, I even raise the mattress up so that she doesn't strain herself. After that, we both sit on opposites sides at the end of her bed.

"Really?" she asks. "My birthday already?"

"Just one of the many more to come," I say.

Don't say anything depressing. Don't say anything depressing. Don't say...

"Thank you boys, so much."

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

"Anyway," I say. "Look, got you some stuff. It's nothing store bought, so it's not that great."

I show her the dolls first, warning her not to touch them because the paint was still wet. She laughed at the little scowl I gave Sasuke, who was not amused. Her favorite though, was the card tree. She took it out of the vase and started to go through all the photos. Laughing at certain pictures and telling some small story behind it. We've heard them all before, but it's good to see her happy.

While she's preoccupied with looking through all the cards, Sasuke makes a passing comment.

"Too bad we couldn't get something better."

What's this "we"? I could've sworn "I" got her the cards and worked on the actual gift. But I digress.

"It doesn't matter," I shrug. "I gave her something earlier."

He looks over at me.

"What does that mean?"

Shit, did I say that out loud? I was thinking about the promises, didn't mean to tell him about that. I shake my head.

"It's nothing. Don't worry about it."

I don't really want to tell him about the promises we made to each other on what seemed like an eternity ago.

Her birthday passes slowly and only comes to an end when the lights have been lowered. She settles back into her bed, and Sasuke and I settle into our positions on the visitor's couch. Once her breathing evens out to the best of its abilities, Sasuke starts to drift off, and once he's sound asleep, I start to nod off. It's usually how any other day ends, and the next morning brings the same routine.

Day in, day out. Same old, same old.

Until my birthday hits.

Sasuke isn't there when it happens. It's his last day of school. He didn't want to go, but I made him. True, there's really never anything that _needs_ to be done on the last day of school. It's just his finals, and he told me days in advance that he could have done them and gotten out of school earlier. I insisted though, that he not try to cram everything so close together near the end. Take his time, go about as if nothing was wrong because there was no need to rush.

"I can stay you know."

It's what he said when she didn't wake up in time to say goodbye to him.

"No. No. It's okay. Really."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. Completely."

"I can make them up."

"Just go to school."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure."

"..."

"..."

He's worried. I know he is 'cause I'm worried. Her heart patterns aren't the same irregular patterns that we've come to known. There have been more doctor's coming in and trying many new treatments (Which I didn't like but they sounded so goddamn convincing that I really thought they knew what the hell they were talking about), giving us new information and how progress is coming along.

Fucking quacks...

"...Okay."

"Okay..."

It happens, not long after he leaves. Maybe an hour or two. I step out to change clothes in the bathroom, like I do any other normal day. I briefly start to think on how we're going to need to go home real quick to wash clothes when I see them running down the hall. Two doctors, an orderly, a nurse, running one right after each other, maybe lagging a second or two. It's a common sight. People are always coding, medics are always running to save them. What made me drop the outfit I held in my hand at that moment though, was the sight of my mother's doctor running after them.

I chase after him. All the way back to the room, clothing left on the floor. I don't go back in though. I really can't. There're too many people crowding her, too much noise, everything's going off erratically, they're trying to stabilize her... And then...

Nothing...

That monotonous single pitch of a dead line goes off for just a bit longer while they still crowd around the bed, trying to revive, recitative, _bring_ her back...

And still...

Nothing...

I had fallen to the ground way before that sound went off. I was already sitting against the wall outside the room, listening to them all panic over their _patient_, over my _mother_. I can't say it's surprising... Because it really isn't... I knew back at the bathroom... When I saw that fucking quack running...

It was already over...

"Call it."

"We can still-"

"Not any more. Call it."

Mom...

"Time of Death-"

Just how exactly...

"-10:19 A.M.-"

Did this constitute...

"-June 9."

As getting better?...

**xxx**

-Turning point!

-Things are gonna get more interesting (and angsty) for the Uchiha bros. Oh, the misadventures they will come across in the chapters to come. ^-^


	5. Chapter 5

**xxx  
>V: <strong>_"Starting over, but like "over over", you can't do that in the same place. You can try, but it doesn't work."_**  
>xxx<strong>

It was nice outside.

Perfect weather.

For a funeral.

Everyone was there, and I mean _everyone_. Aunts, Uncles, Grandparents, Cousins, people I've only seen for a second or two in my life once when I was very young and never saw them again ever were there. And it makes me wonder, why?

Why are these people here? I'm pretty certain that my mother only talked to a handful of these people on a regular basis and even then I can't say that she was particularly close to any of them. As far as I could recall, she never spoke of anyone outside of holidays, and that was most likely because we were obliged to give some kind of token to let them know that yes we did remember them and wished them a happy whatever.

Leeches. That's what they are. All of them. I can tell you all right now that these so called "relatives" don't give a flying fuck about my mother or us. And honestly, I don't know why the hell they're hanging around. Actually, that's not true. I do know why they're around.

Money.

Right?

Isn't that what everyone comes sniffing around for at funerals? Ooh, someone's dead, let's see what they left behind, go through it all.

Oh, wouldn't this look lovely above the mantle piece?

If I take this in here, it'll look great on me.

This would make a great gift to such and such. Ha, don't need to go shopping now!

Of course though, my parents left everything to me to share with Sasuke, so in retrospect, they can't sniff around as much as they try to suck up to me. Meaning that pretty much, my entire day has been like:

**Nobody#1: **You poor things, I am so sorry for your lost. Your mother was a wonderful woman.**  
>Me: <strong>She was, she was.**  
>Nobody#2:<strong> And with your father gone, it's lucky for you two boys that you have money to live on for at least a little while.**  
>Me:<strong> Oh, but we don't. No, all that money is gone.**  
>Nobody#1:<strong> No money? That can't be true!**  
>Me:<strong> Oh, but it is, it is. See, after the book publishing everything just went to hell. We had to file bankruptcy, you know.**  
>Nobody#1:<strong> I.. I didn't know. Mikoto never told me anything like that.**  
>Nobody#2:<strong> That would be like her, wouldn't want us worrying over her family.**  
>Me:<strong> Yes, a strong woman. Now I'm just sorry that I'll most likely have to whore myself out to support my brother. Excuse me.

Mom, I am sorry for lying to them, but I can't say that I didn't have fun.

I know, I know, it's horrible of me, the way I see it though, they totally deserve whatever bull crap I threw at them. Still, I guess it wasn't very fair to Sasuke. He seemed to have taken the whole thing seriously. He really should lighten up.

I'm such an asshole.

So by the time we finally do get home, I'm in front of the TV. There's snow. On every channel. I forgot to pay the cable. The lights go off. I forgot to pay the light too.

"There's no water!"

Can you blame me for not remembering something like bills? Sorry mom, not even a day in your grave and I'm using use as an excuse. You didn't fail in raising me, I'm just terrible by nature, really.

I can hear Sasuke trudge down the stairs, his shoes do that squeak thing across the tile of the entry way. I can tell that he took a small break to stare at the portrait hanging there before coming into the living room.

The room is dark, there's random things thrown everywhere, the food that we were in the middle of eating before rushing to the hospital was still out. Which is actually really gross and made the room smell. Mom's bed is still there, why the hell wouldn't it be? I think that's what stopped Sasuke from coming in right away, but in the end, he sat down next to me on the couch.

"There's no water."

I don't bother to look at him when I say, "There's no light either."

It takes him a minute to reply. "So there's no TV?"

I want to laugh, but I don't. "No. There isn't."

Again, he hesitates. "That sucks."

I agree.

We sit there in the dark, for... a long time. I don't even know how long we're sitting there, but that's all we do. Finally, out of nowhere, Sasuke says something.

"I don't wanna be here anymore."

"It's not a big deal, I'll pay everything tomorrow."

"No, stupid, I don't wanna be here anymore."

I would look over at him, but it seems pointless since I can barely see the outline of his profile from the corner of my eye.

"Where do you wanna be?" I ask.

I can feel his body shift. He doesn't know.

"Just not here."

My head tilts back slightly.

"Yeah.. me neither."

And that's how we decided to move. Facepalm all you want, it was a pretty different way for us to come to a conclusion like that. It was almost like the fact that we had no idea where we were going, how much it was going to cost, or that Sasuke was still underage and needed two more years of school to go, didn't matter. A true historic moment in our family.

It didn't take long to do anything. Both of us packed things we wanted in the back of the car, the clothes went in the backseat. There wasn't any suitcases or anything. Things were stacked neatly and crammed the best we could manage and the clothes were half folded in laundry baskets or stuffed into garbage bags. Since we actually own the house, we could keep the rest of the stuff there and not have to worry about. Most of that is actually just the parent's stuff and whatever isn't really _needed _needed.

Now it was all up to the decision of where _exactly_ were we going?

"North?"

It's such a vague suggestion that I can't help but mess around with it.

"What about East?"

"What about it?"

"Why can't we go East?"

"We can."

"Is there something wrong with East?"

"East is fine."

"Nah, we can go North."

"How about North East?"

"Ah, finally, some clarity."

Sasuke doesn't bother to reply to that and I don't bother to see his facial reaction to it, if there was one I mean. He's become very introverted, and I don't blame him... I wonder if I should have told the school we were moving... They'll have to know when he registers at a new one, so it doesn't matter, right?

"What about school?"

"What about it?"

"You didn't have to inform them that you were leaving town or anything?"

I look over just in time to see him shrug.

"Probably."

"Probably?"

"They'll find out when I register at a new school, won't they?"

Oh my God, we are brothers!

"What if we end up in a place where there isn't a school?"

Sasuke doesn't reply right away.

"There's high school on-line now."

"That's, well, that's true."

God bless technology. Heh, if that isn't a total contradiction...

We don't talk anymore after that. The only time we make to talk to each other is if either one of us mind the radio on, or what station to settle for. When it's time to eat, which drive-thru to choose and what size should a combo be or if we want to buy a drink for each of us or save and just get one meal 'cause one of us doesn't really like fries. Oh, we can substitute? Well, hot damn, we'll both have onion rings instead. Drinks? One regular, one cherry. And please, please, _please_ for the love of all that is holy, mark the caps correctly.

I eat while I drive, 'cause I'm that great of a multi-tasker. I'm done with my food while Sasuke just stares at his sandwich. I ask him what's wrong.

"The walls have eyes," he replies.

I double take. "What?"

"The walls have eyes," he repeats. "Is that how the saying goes?"

"I.. I guess."

"Because I always thought it was, if these walls have ears."

"Technically, it's if these walls could talk."

"Why the fuck would walls have mouths?"

"Why the fuck would they have eyes and ears?"

He hesitates. "Do walls have faces?"

"Is there something wrong with your food?"

He takes a bite. The conversation ends. I keep driving. Sasuke keeps quiet. He ends up changing the station. I don't question it. Mile after mile, it stays this way until we run out of gas. I have no idea where we are or even how close we are to a station. I probably should have put more than twenty in the tank the last time I filled up. Sasuke says as much.

It starts to rain.

Life... Life is good...

**xxx**

-I really fail at this catch-up updating thing. DX

-If it's anything though, I'm in that very recluse loving mood I need to be in to write more of this. :D

-Yeah, I know that's not really a plus either.


	6. Chapter 6

**xxx  
>VI: <strong>_"Romanticism makes it seem as though there's a difference between house and home, and there's not."_**  
>xxx<strong>

We're asleep in the car. Because let's be honest, rain, stranded orphans, perfect serial killer plot, right? I know when it's the perfect time to put two and two together, and the solution to this problem would be to lock the car up, huddle under what we can and be as alert as we can be in this situation while trying to rest. I can tell you right now, like most ideas, it sounds a lot better then actually trying it out.

Because when there's loud knocking against the window and we both freak out when it happens, just proves how alert we are.

I refrain from clutching my chest, it wasn't that much of a surprise for me. Really, it wasn't. Sasuke's looking down into his lap though, I'm pretty sure it was for him.

Anyway, there's an indifferent looking red head at my window. Should probably do something about that. I readjust my seat, I had reclined it back so I could sleep better, and roll down the window so that me and this stranger may converse with one another. Only a fraction though, stranger danger, kids.

"Do you need something?" he asks. I'm pretty sure that's my line.

"Why do you ask?" I reply.

He gestures to the car. "Seems like you would."

"If they don't need anything, leave 'em!"

There was some blonde guy with him. A total dick, I could tell. He was sitting on the hood. You don't just sit on someone's hood like that.

I unlocked the door and stepped out. Sasuke did the same on his side. The red head backed away, but the blonde didn't move.

"We need to get going," he goes on. "Tobi's gonna catch up if we don't keep moving and I ain't dealing with him today."

I ignore him and address the red head only.

"You know where there's a gas station around?"

"Town is more that way," he tells me, pointing down the road more. "It's about half a mile."

"So what're you guys doing out here?" Sasuke asks.

"There's a boarding house up that path there," the stranger continues and changes in the direction he points. "It's secluded from the rest of the population."

"Come on," his blonde companion complains. "I thought you didn't like being late, hm?"

"I don't like to make people wait."

"Same thing."

"We don't have anyone waiting for us."

"If we don't get the hell outta here, he's gonna-"

"Deidara-senpai~!"

The blonde curses and then rounds on me. "This is your fucking fault."

My fault? The hell did I do? Dick...

Another person comes running down the dirt road that had suspiciously appeared at out nowhere. He looked like a teenager, wearing skinny jeans and a dark purple flannel. The kid looked more emo than my brother, his hair even did that flippy thing like that guy from that band. To top it off, he had on a pair of thick rimmed glasses. (1)

His running skirts to a stop when he reaches the car, he's panting slightly.

"I don't think you heard me," he gasps, "I told you to wait for me. I forgot my wallet in the room."

"Oh no, I heard you," this Deidara person tells him. "I was trying to ditch you."

The emo kid only grins and laughs about how funny his "senpai" is. This kid is going places.

The three end up leaving us on the side of the road. Apparently the friendly Samaritan role ran it's course and they went on into town. What the hell kinda sticks did we end up in that the phrase " going into town" is alive and well? Sasuke leans up against the car. I join him.

"So now what?" he asks.

I shrug. "I don't know. What d'you think we should do?"

"You're the adult."

"Not by choice."

He doesn't reply and I don't bother to try to fill the silence. It's pretty damn quiet around us too. Now that's it's light out and not raining, we can actually get a better view of our surroundings. It pretty much looks like a setting from The Blair Witch Project. You know the beginning where they leave their car behind to go hiking? Yeah, it's that kind of setting.

"Want to push the car to the gas station?"

"No."

"Well then, we're fucked."

"There has to be some kind of towing thing around here," he says.

"Yeah, maybe. How's your phone?"

"Dead."

I pull mine out of my back pocket and check it. There's battery and no bars. Why is there all sorts of bad luck lately?

"We can check out the boarding house they were talking about," I say to him. "Maybe they've got a phone we can use or something."

Sasuke shrugs. "It's worth a shot."

Really, it didn't seem like that big of a deal to follow the dirt path towards the alleged boarding house, but it was actually uphill, and pretty steep at that. It would also twist and turn around tons of trees, really when you walk it, you have to wonder who thought of putting a house up here.

When we do reach the house though, we have to take a pause and just admire the damn thing.

It was old, that much was certain. It was made entirely out of dulled out red brick, pillars, balconies, off white windows that were chipping and had at least four floors. There's a few cars parked right in front of it, no kind of fence or anything. Just a huge old house in the middle of a really big clearing surrounded by forest.

Definitely no one weird living here.

There's a small paved walkway leading up to the front door, past a weather torn sign reading 'Red Dawn Boarding House' and a small metal wall of mailboxes labeled with stickers.

Sasuke gestured for me to knock. I shrug indifferently and knock as loud as I could. No one answered, so I did it again. After a five to ten minutes of just waiting on the front porch, I tried the door knob and found that it opened. Well, when adventure calls...

I push the door open even more, shuffling quietly inside with Sasuke behind me. The first room we entered was a marble floored entry way with stairs on either side of the walls leading upward. There were dusty red curtains hanging over the archways leading into other rooms. There was the sound of a blaring television coming from one side of the house, a fire alarm going off in another, and splashing water coming from upstairs.

"Who are you?"

Both Sasuke and I jump. Out of nowhere there's this guy in front of us. Dark complexion but with really bright eyes. He looked biracial and pretty damn serious.

"We're looking for whoever owns the place," I say.

Without another word he steps to the side and waves in the direction of the middle archway. I nod slightly at him and grab at Sasuke so that he'd be right behind me. From the way he complied, I don't think he had too much of an issue with it.

Going through the middle archway in the entrance hall leads to a dinning room. A really nice dinning room. The walls were pale blue with a pattern of gold fleur-de-lys all over, the curtains over the elongated french windows were white lace, and all the furniture was made out of cherry wood. There was even a piano. A frickin' piano forté sitting in the corner, I kid you not.

At the head of the table, clear on the other side of the room, another man sat with some kind of breakfast in front of him and a newspaper. He was different then the one that had randomly popped out of nowhere though. He had really bright orange hair and several facial piercings despite the fact that he was clearly up there age wise.

He looks up at us and right away asks, "Are you here about the room?"

And that's how we found a new home. Complete with our own cast of colorful characters with history. There used to be ten living here, now there's nine. Or eight, depends on who you talk to. Just for reference's sake, here's a quick profile of Red Dawn's boarders:

**Pain** - All I really know about him is that the name he goes by isn't even his real name. This much I figured when I first heard it, but then he told me himself that he goes by a stage name. I don't know why he needs or needed a stage name, because I never find out what it was he does or did. None of the other boarders know either and Konan's never told anyone anything. So yeah, we're left in the dark as far as he's concerened.

**Konan** - She's the same age as Pein, they're both either already in their forties, or pushing. She's an actress. On the stage that is, she tried for the Hollywood glamour when she was younger but it never took. She was lucky enough to get a small back role in an indie film about high school kids, but never anything after. She and Pain moved back here and started the boarding house. She co-owns it, but most of the time she's at the theatre. She'll stop acting soon though.

**Kakuzu** - Oldest resident, older than either Pain or Konan at the age of sixty-something. From what I hear, he used to be some rich bastard that lost the majority when the markets kept crashing. Rumor is though, that he pulled out the money he had left and took off with it. He's only living here because it's cheap and no one bothers to do background checks. Don't know if it's true, don't really care. If he croaks though, I'm pretty sure that whoever's in the house at the time will go through his stuff. Not sure who, but someone's bound to.

**Hidan** - I don't know much about Hidan. Other than he's probably the most religious nut I've ever come across and likes to inflict pain on other people. I prefer not to know more than that. There are some things that are hard to miss though. Like his inability to keep a shirt on even when it's below freezing.

**Sasori** - The red head who knocked on our window. He's a ventriliquist. A really devout ventriliquist. His room's filled with puppets. He calls it art, I call it creepy as hell. To each his own, I suppose. He's pretty quiet more or less, goes about his own business without interfering in other's and is actually considerate. In his own way, and when the time calls for it that is. I don't have a real problem with him, so it's all good by me.

**Deidara** - A sculptor with an arms fetish. And no, I don't mean the kind of arms as in limbs, I mean the kind that blow up buildings. Though I did see some tame weaponry in his room, it seems like he's partial to things that are loud. Which must explain why he can't seem to speak at a normal decible level. I don't like him, like at all. Unfortunately though, he doesn't seem to be the friend that nobody fucking likes. Honestly though, I don't think I'm alone in my opinion.

**Tobi** - The emo kid. Which he is, a kid I mean. Or at least he looks the part. I don't really know how old he is, but I'm pretty sure he's somewhere between Deidara and me. When you pass by his door, it's plastered with phrases and words written in Japanese Kanji and Hirigana surrounded by clippings of anime stills from magazines. A regular anime weaboo. No, really, his first words to me when I asked him about it were: "Heh, when it comes down to it, I'm just an anime otaku. You ever see the movie that came from?". I hadn't, but a few weeks later I did.

**Kisame** - He's blue. No shit, his skin is blue. An accident happened during a temp job and for some reason, there was a reaction to something they stuck in him and it made him blue. Permanetly. Like that Indian guy from that Mitch Albon book. He was studying to be a Marine Biologist when it happened, never got a reason as to why he didn't go on with it afterwards. I get a feeling it's 'cause his skin's blue. No doubt there'll be jerks who'll make a crack. Anyway, he seems to be the most level headed one. Nothing much else to go on.

**Zetsu **- He doesn't live in the boarding house. Or at least I think he doesn't live in the house. There's a room with his name on the door, but there's no mailbox labeled for him outside. Tobi tells me that he does odd jobs for Pain, but he doesn't know exactly what those odd jobs are. Zetsu pretty much shows up around the place whenever, there are times when I'll be walking down the hallway and all of a sudden he'll show up next to me. If anything at least, he's made me a lot more aware of things around me so nothing really takes me by surprise anymore.

**Yuri** - She was the one who had lived in the room we were going to be staying. She was a singer and an aspiring actress apparently, had run away and tried to make it in Hollywood. She ran away again when things weren't going right. She ended up working for a lounge bar place in town and no one really knows what happened, but she ended up locking herself up in the room until she threw herself out the window. Poor kid, she was barely eighteen.

It was her room that was available. Lucky us, once again.

The upstairs was a little more run down the the common rooms. The floorboards creaked and the paint on the walls is peeling at the top, faded away to a yellowing color. Unless that's the color they were to begin with, either way, they need to be redone. The stairs are carpeted with a paisley pattern, something that you would see out of the seventies. The railings are a little loose, neither one of us hold on to them as we climb upwards. It's the same on both floors. The stairway leading up to our room is different. Since it's attic like, the stair way is surrounded by walls on both sides. It's narrow and dark, but the more we make our way on them, we realize that there's a landing in front of the door that's spacious enough.

So I know that she didn't actually die in the room, but it's still really weird. The whole time the two of us are climbing up the stairs to it, I keep thinking things like how someone else had gone up these steps. Someone else used to carry the key I'm carrying. Someone else used to call this room their own. Someone who was in this same spot before me had lived, and now she was dead.

These thoughts haunt me all the way to the top.

"You gonna open the door?" Sasuke calls from behind me.

"Yeah, yeah, give me a sec."

The key goes in flawlessly, the turn it makes is smooth. The small click that alerts the lock coming undone is barely audible. I push the wood panel and the door swing open without so much as a groan from the hinges. Despite appearances, this place is well taken care of.

I step to the side so Sasuke can go in first. He moves without any hesitation, into the dark room. He's the first to do anything. He turns on the light, he dumps his bag on the bed, he opens the window, he starts rifling through the boxes...

I stay in the door frame. I watch him do everything. I mutter to myself.

"I'm home."

Sasuke turns back to me.

"Are you just gonna stand there? Close the frickin' door."

**xxx**

(1) Okay, so I have this thing where I really love Tobi, but I didn't like the whole "he's really Madara Uchiha" thing that happened. So in the universe, Tobi is his own person. And he's awesome.

-Homg! An OC! There is a reason for her though. I have really figured it out, but I know she plays a part.

-Anyway, um... Tobi's use of honorifics is explained later on. Like, in the next chapter. And that's about it really... Yeah, I'm pretty sure.


	7. Chapter 7

**xxx  
>VII: <strong>_"It's the same everywhere, whatdja think you were gonna find?"_**  
>xxx<strong>

It's not exactly a city, where we end up I mean. It's not like a small mountain town either though. It's something in the middle. True, the next populated area is miles away, but it's not as bad as I thought it was.

"Did you see the school?"

Kisame and Tobi helped me push the car up to the house. Well, Kisame helped anyway, Tobi would just dig his heels into the dirt and fall flat onto his face when it moved. I'm sure that he was actually trying though, and for that, I thanked him. Sasuke sat in the driver's seat, steering to the road so that it would be easier. Once we had that done, a small trip to the station was made on foot for some gas and then we were able to start unpacking. This is what we're doing now. It had been quiet between the two of us and me being the intelligent one, figured it would do good to start some sort of conversation.

Sasuke's in the middle of hanging his clothes up in the half of his closet. I take this time to notice that the both of us have an enormous amount of black clothes. Maybe we should go shopping?...

Anyway, he doesn't bother to stop what he's doing.

"Yeah."

"Did you like the look of it."

He shrugs.

"It's a school."

I don't reply to him right away. While he's hanging up clothes, I set about to wipe the entire room clean. It was already equipped with furniture, in a sense. There was only one bed, a desk, a night stand, a small dresser with a mirror over it and a rug. All left over from the last resident. No idea why they kept it all, it's kind of morbid but whatever.

"We'll need to find out when school starts here and all that," I say. He just grunts in reply. "Don't even know if their school's still in session. Well, it's not like you didn't get all your credits for the year already, so that's something we don't have to worry about at least."

He stops what he's doing all of a sudden. It's only for a second or two, literally, but the abruptness of it and the fact that I'm still watching makes it noticeable.

"Yeah," he agrees, "I got my credits. Only thing that was important."

He can't really hold resentment against me for making him go to school that day... Can he? It's quiet again, the only sounds are the shuffling we do around each other, the squeaking of making things cling, and the rustle of objects being put away. There's still the issue of the bed that needs to be addressed, I can't keep sleeping on the floor. I don't think there's enough room up here for another bed though. Maybe we can get bunks? Or should I just get like a cot or something? There are those couches that fold out. Do we even need a couch? We have that little TV we could hook up. There's no cable up here, but we can hook up the console. Don't have to deal with playing downstairs.

The more we go along with this dance, the tenser the air seems. It gets to the point where I even believe that if the window is open it'll help make the room less stuffy. It doesn't.

"How 'bout we go shoping later?"

"Shopping for what?"

"Some more stuff.. Maybe a mini fridge so we don't have to keep all of our stuff in the ones downstairs. And then maybe we can get some new clothes. I have to find something to sleep on."

"Do you want the bed?"

"No, you can keep it. I just need a cot or something."

"Why don't we get bunk beds?"

"I thought about that. How would we get it up here?"

"In pieces."

"We should just take a look around and see where we are for real."

"Hn."

When later does come around and I ask again if he wants to go out he readily declines. When I leave him, he's on the bed, earbuds in and reading. I can't help but feel that he had already decided that he wasn't going with me when I had first asked him.

I leave the room before sighing. I don't know what to do. With him, I mean. I don't know if he blames me for what happened, or if he's just holding a grudge because I made him go to school when he asked to stay. I don't know how to talk to him anymore. And even if I did, I'm not so sure if he would even reply.

I would take him to a shrink, y'know, if I thought that would actually help. Honestly though, I think parents who send their kids to shrinks are copping out. It's like saying, "We don't know what's wrong and we're not even gonna try to figure it out so we'll let someone else do our job.". I'm not his parent, but I am his brother, and the only family he has left. I should be able to talk to him, to find out what's wrong.

But I can't. And it pisses me off.

I walk down the stairs and pass by Kisame coming out of his bedroom.

"Where you off to?" he asks.

"Heading into town, gonna try to find something that I can sleep on."

"Where's your brother?"

"Up in the room."

He walks with me up until we hit the bathroom. He gives me a quick bye and I start downwards to the next level. This time I meet Tobi. He's outside of his door, putting more characters up.

"Itachi-san!" he calls out. "You're Japanese, can you tell me if this is right?"

I pause.

"Uh, I really don't know the language."

Hate to break the kid's heart but it's true. He literally deflates in front of me. I leave before he can say anything else.

"Why doesn't anyone in this house know...?"

Sorry Tobi, I don't know the answer to that question.

The next level doesn't have anyone, thank God. I'm able to make my way out of the house without another distraction. It's not until I hit the outside porch that I get my next boarder interaction.

It's Konan this time. She's propped up on the railing, leaning against a pillar with a cigarette between her lips. Her hair isn't pulled up like it normally is, instead it's hanging down in loose waves. It looks damp in some places, she must have just come out of the shower.

She plucks the cancer stick out of her mouth and blows out a puff of smoke in the other direction. She asks me if I'm heading into town. I tell her that I am.

"Give me a lift to the theatre."

It's not a question; nothing with Konan is ever a question. It's only been two days and I already know this. So I nod, because there's nothing else to do. She hops off the railing and crushes the butt of her cigarette against the cement steps. She's barely wearing anything.

She has on this black negligee type dress on with a sheer cover up that reaches her knees. Her feet are covered with these worn down Chinese shoes. I ask her if she's cold. She says she isn't. The conversation ends there.

The drive into town is the same. We don't talk. There's the slight muffle of radio, but other than that it's quiet. She breaks it once to ask if she could light another cigarette. I tell her it's fine and she goes ahead and lights one after rolling down the window. It's almost a God send when we reach the theatre.

The theatre. It's no big deal. Really it isn't. It's this small block shaped thing smashed in between stores on the main street. It looks like it couldn't hold more than fifty people, and the letterings don't even stay up on the sign anymore. There's people going in. Konan ends up getting out of the car before I can even come to a complete stop.

She doesn't say thanks, I don't really care.

I take my time going around, trying to find somewhere to buy furniture. There's something like a Wal Mart, and without any hesitation, I park.

It's the same linoleum and ashen gray carpet for the flooring and fluorescent lighting. The aisles are lined up with the standard food, pet toys, disposable eatery, cleaning supplies, everything. If it wasn't for the slight change up of where everything was located, I'd swear that it was the same thing. The furniture is where it always is; in the back, next to electronics.

There are bunk beds. White, brown, black, iron, wood, plastic. I'm not sure who would have enough faith to sleep in a plastic based bunk bed, unless you were on top. No one would sleep on the bottom though. Or someone without a death wish at least. Wonder if Sasuke would sleep on the bottom. He's a little emotional right now, that much is understandable, but I'm pretty sure he isn't suicidal. But it's not like I can't come out and ask him, I'm also pretty sure he kind of (if not totally) hates me right now.

Would he answer me? Doubtful. I'm not exactly his favorite person right now. I know that much at least.

Which makes me wonder when I lost that status. I can't remember anything. I remember making money, tons of money. And then Dad dying, and at that point he already hated me. Or if not hated, he didn't like me as much as when he was a kid. Still doesn't.

"Sir, do you need any help?"

More than you know.

So I get the plastic bunk beds, one of the workers help me carry it out to the car. It doesn't fit in the trunk, but it does fit in the backseat. I'm not sold on the safety, I just want to see. Want to make it a little test for my dear little brother. It doesn't pay to be indirect, but when given no other option, what the hell? I have no real intention of setting them up anyway.

Before I do head back, I need to get us something to eat. Everyone has their own food, labeled and everything. We haven't bought groceries yet, so we've basically been eating out of paper bags since we got here. It's not healthy and it's rather disgusting, but it's what we gotta do to eat. At least for now.

There's only two drive thru's. Both pretty much sell the same menu. I've been going to the same one twice a day for the past two days, so I decide to go to the other. Switch it up a bit. Make things _different_.

There's static for a brief moment over the intercom before a clear voice rings out. It's warm and honest, something I haven't heard in a long time.

"Good afternoon, how are you today?"

How am I? How am I...

I start talking before I even realize it. And even when I do, I don't even bother to stop myself.

"You really wanna know how I am? I assume because you're the only one that's asked me in a long time. I don't remember when the last time someone actually cared to ask how I was doing. Well, I'll be honest, I don't know how the fuck I am. I know this isn't the worst situation in history, but as far as my personal life goes, it's pretty fucked up. I know I'm not trying, but he isn't either, no one is. And yeah, I can blame never being in a spot like this before, but in the end I'm still supposed to be the responsible one, the adult, but I can't do that. I don't know how to look after someone else and we've never had the problem of not talking to each other before which just throws me off. And y'know what, I'm actually a little ticked, because he's acting like it's the worse tragedy that's ever befallen him, but they were my parent too. Yeah, I don't wear it on my sleeve, but that's because I know that I can't just cry about it all the time. I know that there are other people with the same damn story. I know that I'm not special, feeling this way that is. But no, no, the whole fucking world needs to stop for him. The whole fucking world needs to see how angry he is at everything."

There's a faint buzz of in the background. From the kitchens no doubt.

"Um..." the voice starts up again. "D-Do... Do you want to t-talk about it?"

I pause.

"Uh.. A little, yeah."

"Well, there's no one here. We don't get much, um, lunch rush. Small town, y'know?" She laughs a little. Yeah, it's a female voice. "So, uh.. Go ahead. I'm, I'm right here."

So I tell her everything. Who I am, which makes her compliment the book, I thank her. What happened, she apologized, I tell her it's not her fault. How we decided to move, she laughed a little, I did as well. How we were stranded, she says nothing, I continue. My suspicions, she makes an understanding noise, I go on. My feelings in general and she listens. I talk and she listens.

"He is depressed," she says. "And it's understandable. He most likely won't talk to you, but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't try to talk to him. Don't try to act like nothing is wrong, but make the effort to show that you are still here and that you want to make things better. I think once your relationship with him settles, you'll find yourself a lot happier."

"Happier?"

"Yes. You're not a bad person, you deserve some kind of happiness. Life is short after all. We can't all just wallow in our own self-pity."

"I suppose, but thanks for letting me vent all the same."

"No problem. This is my shift all summer so, come back any time."

"Are you kicking me out of the drive thru without me even getting a chance to order?"

"Ah! N-no, I mean, no. Of course, you can or-order!"

"Just kidding."

"Oh! Oh... Uh.. So, w-what can I get for you?"

I haven't laughed this much in a while; it's refreshing in a way. I give her the order, it's simple enough. I make her promise that she'll label the drinks right. She stutters her way through it and asks me to pull up. I do so gladly. When I do, I'm a little surprised.

She's a young thing. I knew she would be, but not this young. She has a round face from some baby fat that hasn't been lost, with dark hair that's been pulled up the best she could in a high pony tail. Her bangs and side bangs hang around her face and her eyes are paler than her skin. She's coming out of an awkward stage, though from the looks of it, it wasn't _that_ awkward.

"How old are you?" I ask her right before I hand her my debit card.

"F-fifteen," she answers. "Well, I will be. I start my Sophmore year in the fall."

"I thought you were older."

She blushes slightly.

"I-I'm sorry."

"For what?"

Her blush darkens.

"I don't know..."

The rest of the banter goes by normally, ending with a promise to see her soon. Which she instantly blushes at. This's been the most fun I've had in a while.

And no, I'm not going to seriously flirt with a fifteen year old. I'm messed up, but I'm not a pedophile.

The ride back is uneventful. It gives me time to think, which I don't really like. This situation becomes a little clearer to me. My brother is depressed, possibly suicidal. I don't really think so. I just turned twenty and forced into the role of guardian. We moved from the comfort of our family home out to the middle of nowhere to reside in a boarding house filled with... odd people. There's a slight rift in our relationship and I just received life advice from a fifteen year old cashier in a fast food drive thru.

Is this normal? Really? Does this happen to people? I can't believe it does, but here I am. Literally, living proof.

Maybe I'm just thinking too much into all of this. Maybe I don't need to think anything. Maybe I should just do what the cashier said. Maybe I should just let it play out and try to take the reigns then. Maybe I should give a damn. Maybe I shouldn't.

Too many maybes. Too many questions. Never any answers. And the answers you do get, are vague and provide too many loopholes. There's nothing solid, nothing definite.

It's like Life doesn't want you to have a cohesive, stable way of living.

Life's such a crock of shit.

There's an epic game of CoD going on in the living room. Tobi's kicking ass, you can tell from the way Hidan's cursing. Kisame sees me pass the arch way and gives me a nod. I return the gesture and trot upstairs. Pain's door is some what open, it's enough for some jazz to come out and see that he's reading in a lounge chair. Kakuzu's room across the way has the sound of an account's calculator going. Guess it's quiet time for them up here.

When I reach the room, Sasuke's stopped reading. He was just lying on the bed now, his earbuds still in, but the with the book splayed across his front. I don't think he was sleeping; though when I do walk in, he eyes open and search me out faster than anything. I think the mishap of sleeping in the car drilled that into him. His eyes roam to the brown bag splotched with grease.

"Whatdja get this time?" he asks.

"Though I'd give the usual's competition a try," I say.

We both sit on the bed. I hand out his portion and give him his own marked beverage. Sasuke already starts to eat while I start to barely unwrap my own food.

"Did you find something?"

It's a little reassuring, him asking all these questions.

"Find something?"

"To sleep on."

"I found bunk beds."

He takes a bite of his sandwich. I throw some fries in my mouth.

"Have to put it together?"

"Yeah."

"'Course."

Moment of truth.

"It's made of plastic."

"Cool. So, what? Do you want the top."

"You're okay with being on the bottom."

"Yeah, why not?"

The bunk never leaves the backseat.

**xxx**

-Updated for dearest Itachi's birthday! (Yeah, I actually remembered. I also remember that Hinata's birthday is the 27th of December, Sasuke's somewhere in July and Naruto's is.. October... ? I think 10th. -cough-)

-Honestly, Itachi and Hinata were like my fave characters ever, so I only theirs still. And Gaara. Sorta. Ends of January. I'm pretty sure.

-I used to be a huge Narutard.

-Anyway, all caught up with the chapters I had already written, and I have nothing new. D: Looks like I'm gonna be updating like before. Fun.


End file.
